Face

Product Information

The main character is a depiction of mild mannered racist individuals who shroud themselves in acceptance as long as it doesn't affect them and balk at the idea of racism until directly faced with equality and the loss of superiority it gives them. with some personal favourites like ‘the plot,’ ‘a ladder to the sky,’ and ‘kill all your darlings,’ im no stranger to a plot about plagiarism. but what makes this book stand out from the others is its hard hitting commentary about the publishing world. It all boils down to self-interest…If publishing is rigged, you might as well make sure it's rigged in your favor.’ RFK is a fantastic writer and skillfully navigates the loneliness and pressure authors feel, making the drastic decisions juniper makes feel somewhat morally grey rather than outright wrong (as we know plagiarism is). and even though its done in a satirical way (which isnt my favourite), i enjoyed the exploration of topics like authors in reader spaces, own voices stories, and the different standards and treatment of white vs minority authors.

This book was a fascinating look into the mind of the worst kind of person in the online bookish community. Effortlessly create reels from trending templates, or let your creativity shine with a full suite of editing tools R. F. Kuang doesn't speak with or to you when she writes, she HAUNTS you. It takes a genius to achieve that.To June, however, she sees diversity as a problem, thinking she is passed over for authors like Athena because it looks good. Which, if we look at the publishing market, shows that about 75% of published authors in the US are white and a 2020 study showed 95% of all books published were by white authors the previous year. What astounded me most was how legitimately real her voice was. Hats off to Rebecca Kuang. She killed this. One of the standout aspects of the book is the author's astute commentary on the perils faced by writers, such as internet trolls who use their freedom of speech rights to berate and belittle their creations. The story skillfully examines the commodification of writers, where their looks, personality, color of their skin and online presence become as important as their writing itself. Remarkably, I found myself attached to a book despite disliking the main character. At times, I wished I could physically enter the story and confront June Hayward/ Juniper Song, who committed the ultimate crime: stealing her late friend Athena Liu's unpublished book. The reasons behind this act of creative theft are complex and include jealousy, thirst for power, honoring her friend's work in the best way possible, and seeking personal gain. It is a tale that explores unfairness, harbored resentment, and a thirst for karmic justice. Will you enjoy a single character? Categorically NO. But you will walk away with a greater understanding of the many failings of the publishing industry and how you might be unconsciously taking part in some of those failings.

i’ve decided not to include any quotes from the book and talk in general terms with minor details to avoid spoilers (not anything that’s not in the premise, anyway), but i’m still talking about how i felt about different parts of the book, including the middle and end, even though I won’t be talking about what happens in them. so if you want to go in blind, beware. i know this runs the risk of me describing something one way, but then you going and reading it and interpreting a different way, but until it actually comes out and i can drop the ‘extended’ (and hopefully more sophisticated) review, this will have to do. it's certainly well-written, but personally i didn't like the writing style or the narrative voice. i know rfk intended the characters to be unlikeable, but i did not root for them at any point of the book. i was irritated most of the time, so i can't really say that i enjoyed reading this. i've read my fair share of books peopled with unlikeable characters, but this one here is just unbearable and repetitive. it got so boring the last third of the book that i had to take a nap before continuing. This book does bring up some interesting points around who gets to tell certain stories and plagiarism. I also think this book does open up important conversations. Yes, at times it makes its point bluntly/crudely and in an obvious way, though through this satire Kuang raises deeper questions too, such as whether anyone can remain truly ethical or generous in a brutally capitalist publishing industry. I liked how Kuang didn’t make Athena a perfect character because by doing so, she highlights how people of color can engage in problematic and oppressive practices too.Kuang delivers extraordinarily accurate insights into the world of publishing and what it means to be a young author today. She extrapolates with extreme precision the granular agonies and anxieties of being online, exacting the creeping sense of terror as a phantom account of Athena begins trolling June online. But, overall, this is absolutely worth your time. Please read this. It is a shining gem in the 2023 literary world. Whether you’re looking for a spark of inspiration with reels or want to dive deeper into something you already love with Marketplace or in groups, you can discover ideas, experiences and people that fuel your interests and help you make progress on the things that matter to you on Facebook.

Kuang unravels layers of our characters’ histories, complicating the narrative and forcing us to ask: “Who can claim literary authorship over our story?” so, a little too “real world” for my personal reading preferences, but there is no doubt this is a provocative novel that sheds light on various aspects of the book world. The most insidious moment sees June travels to Washington DC’s Chinatown for “inspiration” to “find some good narrative potential” at a Chinese restaurant, accosting an innocent waiter and demanding he tell her something interesting about himself. Utterly oblivious to her imperial, colonialist mindset, this scene made my brain writhe in disgust, perhaps because it speaks so close to reality.This book takes Babel and continues to flip the script. June Hayward, a white American woman struggling to become an author, is frenemies with Athena Liu, publishing darling. June continues to state time and time again that Athena is only famous because she is a minority. How many times have we heard this? Helio relates his abandonment by Lula. Lula still loves him and does not leave him callously, but nevertheless his condition makes it impossible for their romance to continue, and Lula reluctantly severs the relationship. Continuing his odyssey with the Brazilian medical bureaucracy, Helio is admonished that he should have had his workplace issue a letter of disability immediately after the accident; without this, there is no question of full reconstruction being authorized. At the most basic of levels, Yellowface is a mash of various genres that follows the passive aggressive “friendship” of Athena and June, two authors in the publishing industry with very different levels of success. Athena has received her big break while June has remained a struggling author. In an absurd (truly absurd if I’m being quite honest haha) turn of events, Athena chokes while engaging in a pancake eating contest with June. After her death, June makes the decision to steal one of her manuscripts and pass it off as her own. What follows next is chaotic descent into the world of publishing and the book community. Was I not meant to admit that? Should I have, instead, gone on long, rambling, and yet tersely flat paragraphs about how ironic it is that I am negatively critiquing a book about plagiarism by using the same points as everyone else? Should I call this satire—granted that there is nothing humorous and that I am not particularly strongly exaggerating anything—as I amateurly write prose so unabashedly written in my own voice that it would be impossible to separate any idea from my own? Because that appears to be the direction this book has gone in. I’ll be honest, I read this book in a single sitting. I could not look away, and Kuang’s writing sweeps you up in it’s conversational cadance. While I’ve enjoyed Kuang’s writing previously, Yellowface feels very polished and matured, the novel reading with the ease and eagerness of a tell-all memoir, which is the framing of the story. As a fictional memoir, it drops a lot of pop culture references to key into a specific time. Kuang’s choice of perspective through June—who rebrands at the request of her publisher as Juniper Song, Song being her middle-name but also nudges readers to think she may have Chinese heritage—is brilliant as it allows us to feel the floor-dropping-out discomfort of becoming the focus of internet rage as well as navigate a vigorous criticism of the publishing industry. Kuang is able to cover issues without moralizing, making the reader sift through alternating opinions that are likely to expose their own assumptions and discomforts, and we must always remember the telling is often guiding us away from judging her and towards everyone else. With a big confession at the center, June can manipulate the reader on smaller issues and in a way it becomes a rather metafictional approach to the way storytelling is just that: fictionalizing stories.